Rise of the Dragonborn
by BassFriday
Summary: Lydia never imagined the dragonborn to be female, least of all an imperial who didn't understand how she'd suddenly become a hero in the eyes of the nords. But with a little help from a friend who would eventually become so much more than that, she might actually save all of Nirn from Alduin. Lydia/ female dragonborn. Strays somewhat from the game, because why read what you played?


**AN:** Ayyy. When I started this story, I began writing it from the beginning of the game, but then I started thinking about how I didn't just want to rewrite the gameplay. So instead, I came up with this idea, where Lydia and the dragonborn meet in a very different way. I hope you like it.

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Her back slammed against the inside wall of the watchtower, and she forced her legs to carry her weight, instead of letting her body slide down to the floor like it desperately wanted to. Something nearby smelled horribly, and it took her a while to realize that it was her own singed hair.

"Mikhail! Close the door!" Erhardt shouted from where he was leaning over Halfdan's partly burned and unconscious body.

Lydia looked to where the door had once been but was no more. It had been torn from its' hinges and was now partly burning more than 30 yards away from the watchtower. Mikhail's legs were right next to it. She looked away; she did not know where the rest of him were.

Pushing herself away from the wall, she stiffly walked to where Erhardt was crouched. He looked up when she put her hand on his shoulder, his face was full of soot and a cut on his eyebrow caused blood to run down into his left eye. "Erhardt, the door is gone, so is Mikhail. I'm sorry."

The old man visibly processed the information, and glanced at the open hole in the wall, that made them even more exposed to their attacker. "Mikhail." He whispered softly and sat down on the floor. "My brother's son, my nephew." Lydia knew of course; she and Mikhail had grown up together, had shown up for guard duty together every day for the last three years. She could barely believe it herself. But she had seen how he had been grabbed and flung through the air, how only some of him had made it back to the ground.

Erhardt did not believe however, for he had not seen, and the old guard forced his body to stand and made his way to where the door had once been. "Mikhail!" He shouted and was about to go outside when Lydia grabbed him and pushed him back into the tower. "You're going to get yourself killed!" She screamed. The two of them stared silently at each other, until a cough from their injured friend broke the spell.

"Halfdan stay still!" Lydia commanded and softly held down his arms to keep him from moving.

"Thorlaif, did he make it?" Halfdan asked with difficulty, gritting his teeth as the action sent pain through the burned tissue of his left face. "I don't know." Lydia answered truthfully. Thorlaif was Halfdan's brother; he had been brave enough to volunteer to try to make a run for Whiterun. To warn them of the dragon attack and hopefully get some assistance sent to the watchtower. She did not know if he had made it, or if parts of him were lying strewn around the surrounding fields as well.

"Was it really a dragon?" Lydia asked softly.

"Aye," Erhardt said and righted a chair that had fallen over during the chaos, "I've never seen one before mind ya, but there is no doubt about it. It was a dragon."

Like every other citizen of Whiterun she had heard of the dragon attack that had destroyed Helgen. She had even heard from Mikhail that the survivor who had sent word of the attack, had been staying at the Bannered mare since their arrival. But she had never imagined that she would ever end up in a situation like this - trapped in a watchtower, while a beast of legends flew around outside waiting to snap her bones. She wondered if this was the day she would go to Sovngarde.

"Do you think it's gone?" Halfdan uttered. No sooner had the words left his mouth before a terrible roar echoed across the sky. Lydia picked up a steel sword that was lying on the ground; she had dropped her own when the dragon attacked and had not thought to pick it back up.

Then they heard something else, something much closer than the dragon; footsteps, a lot of them. Torches lit up the twilight outside, and they were carried by men and women dressed in yellow uniforms signaling that they were part of the Whiterun guard. In the middle of the fast approaching group, Lydia spotted Irileth, Jarl Balgruuf's devoted housecarl.

The reinforcements hurried into the half destroyed watchtower at Erhardt's warning that the dragon was still nearby, and it was then that Lydia realized she did not recognize everyone in the group. A female figure dressed in leather armor was standing next to the doorway, silently gazing out at the sky, keeping watch. Meanwhile the rest of the newcomers were gathering around Halfdan and Erhardt, talking over one another.

"What happened?"

"Is it true? A dragon here in Whiterun?"

"How are we going to kill it?"

"Enough!" Irileth shouted, shutting up every person around her and getting everyone's attention. "Now Erhardt, tell me what happen-"

A blast of fire ignited the ground in front of the tower followed by a roar that echoed through Lydia's head. The stranger who had been standing in the doorway was the first to move, Lydia ran together with her fellow guardsmen towards the inferno and the beast that waited outside.

When the dragon had first attacked, she had been too shocked to really look at it, but now she saw how enormous it was and how ancient it looked; like something not out of her world. She, along with two other guards dove behind a large piece of stone wall that had come off of the watchtower, as the dragon sent a blast of fire their way. As soon as the dragon turned its' attention to some of the other guards, Lydia rolled to a nearby shield and raised it.

Giving herself a moment to observe the battlefield she scanned the chaos in front of her. The dragon had landed on the ground, but nobody with a sword dared getting close enough to actually do any harm to it. One of the guards hurled a dagger at the beast and immediately dived for safety when it sent a breath of flames his way.

Someone crouched next to her behind the boulder, and Lydia realized it was the woman she didn't recognize. Her hood had come off and hair the colour of copper fell down her back, in her hand was a bow and Lydia cursed herself for not having thought of that. Meanwhile, the dragon had returned to the sky, and roared as it flew over the scattered humans below.

The redheaded woman took an arrow from the quiver on her back, drew her bow back and aimed it at the sky. Lydia thought she was either confident or arrogant if she really believed that she was going to hit the dragon midflight. When she released the arrow, the Nord hoped none of her fellow guardsmen would be hit, but neither them nor the dragon seemed to get hit. The woman did not give up though and reached for another arrow, there were however no arrows left in the quiver and her hand closed around empty air. Sighing in frustration she tore it off and threw it to the ground.

Lydia scanned the area around them for more arrows, and her gaze landed on a body laying not too far in front of them. "There." She said, getting the attention of the stranger and pointed to the arrowheads that were seen poking out from under the corpse's back. Her eyes met with the redhead's and she nodded her head outwards, hoping the other woman understood.

The dragon was back on the ground, snapping at the guards that dared come close to it; the Nord made sure it was distracted before she got out from behind the safety of the boulder and made a run for the body that was between her and the winged beast.

Her boots slid on the grass as she made it to the dead guardsman, and she dropped her sword next to her as she caught herself from falling, in the corner of her eye she saw the figure of the mysterious woman. With great difficulty she turned the body on its' stomach and grabbed the quiver, her victory was short-lived though when she saw that the arrows had broken in the fall. She turned towards the stranger expecting to see a disappointed face, but the woman wasn't even looking at her, she was staring intently in front of her.

Lydia felt like ice had replaced the blood in her veins, as she looked ahead and saw that the dragon had scared away the guards and was quickly making its way straight towards her. She stood up slowly, intending to run to safety, but her feet were frozen to the ground in fear. The monster roared and she could barely hear Erhardt shouting for her to run.

The dragon was suddenly less than 15 feet in front of her and opened its' mouth to send her to Sovngarde with a blast of fire, when something slammed into her and knocked her to the ground. Hair that wasn't hers covered her face as the beast unleashed a jet of fire, that missed them by inches. When she opened her eyes the woman had already gotten up and faced the dragon, and in her hand was the sword Lydia had dropped.

Lydia had made it to her hands and knees when the dragon opened its' mouth again, however, before it could release the flames that would torch both her and the redhead, the woman raised the Nord's sword and hurled it at the beast with a cry. The steel sword disappeared into its' open mouth and promptly put an end to their untimely death.

The beast jerked backwards, clearly surprised, and made a sound that sounded to Lydia like it was choking. A small stream of fire burned the grass in front of them as the dragon exhaled loudly and then abruptly fell on its' side where it stopped moving.

For a moment nobody moved, if not for the countless fires around them, there would have been a complete silence - it was as if everyone were holding their breath. When after several moments the dragon still did not move, someone to Lydia's right threw their shield at the beast and she almost expected for the monster to rise back up, but instead the shield bounced off its' scales and landed with a thud in half burned grass.

"It's dead." Erhardt said quietly from somewhere behind her, "IT'S DEAD!".

Guards shouted and whooped around her, while Lydia forced herself back up on her feet. She looked at the stranger who had slain the beast, the woman who had saved her life. Now that the threat to her life was gone, she got a closer look at the woman and saw the sharp nose and cheekbones, as well as her well defined jaw line that was such a telltale sign that she was of imperial descent.

"Are you alrig-" The woman started but was cut off when the body of the dragon suddenly shook and vibrated. People jumped back, afraid that the beast had come back to life, but instead a blinding light that nearly turned night into day, seemed to grow from the dragon's body and traveled forward towards Lydia, or rather, as she realized, towards the redheaded woman where it seemingly disappeared into her very being.

The stranger took several quick steps backwards, as if she was trying to escape it, but the light followed her every move until it disappeared so suddenly that it took Lydia a couple of seconds to get used to the darkness again, and when she did, she let out a gasp at what she saw in front of her; the dragon was nothing but bones.

Like many of the people around her, she headed towards the skeleton of the beast on shaky feet. Perhaps if she touched it, she could actually make herself believe what had happened. Reaching out a trembling hand, she touched the bone just below the dragon's eye socket, while she looked at the teeth that had torn her friend Mikhail from the world.

"FUS!"

The sound cut through the guards quiet murmur of disbelief and silenced the gathering once more. Lydia turned away from what was left of the dragon and followed everyone else's gazes to where they were fixed on the woman who had slain the beast. There was no doubt about it, Lydia did not want to believe that the imperial who stood before her was the hero she had heard countless stories about as a child, but the evidence was overwhelming.

She was the first of many to say the word that would follow the woman before her, even hundreds of years after her death.

"Dragonborn."

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 **AN:** There it is! I would love to hear what you think about it, so please leave a review if you feel like it! :)


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